Astros notes: Team netted ‘quality prospects’ in Pence deal

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The Astros have put a name on the player to named later in the trade that sent All-Star right fielder Hunter Pence to the Philadelphia Phillies.

Minor-league outfielder Domingo Santana, ranked by Baseball America as the Phillies’ No. 9 prospect heading into the season, is the fourth and final player the Astros will receive in return for Pence.

Astros general manager Ed Wade announced Monday that Santana, who turned 19 on Aug. 5, joins minor-league first baseman Jonathan Singleton and pitchers Jarred Cosart and Josh Zeid in the June 29 deal that sent Pence to the Phillies.

Santana is a native of the Dominican Republic who has a .269 batting average, seven home runs and 32 RBI in 96 games with Class A Lakewood of the South Atlantic League. The Astros have assigned the 6-5, 200-pound Santana to Class A Lexington, which also plays in the South Atlantic League. The average age of South Atlantic position players is 21.4, and Santana has a .780 on-base-plus-slugging that is 56 points above the league norm.

Wade said the Astros culled from a list of four Phillies prospects. The player to be named timeline allowed senior director of player personnel Paul Ricciarini and senior advisor Matt Galante time to scout the players at the Phillies’ Lakewood and Clearwater (high Class A) affiliates. Team president Tal Smith also scouted the Lakewood club before the Astros settled on Santana.

“We’re very excited to get a very talented kid,” Wade said. “He’s got plus power, plus raw power, a plus arm and is a tick above-average base runner. He’s somebody we can really dream on as a front-line talent.”

At the time of the Pence trade, MLB.com ranked Singleton and Cosart as the top two prospects in the Phillies’ system. The Phillies, for their part, entered Monday with a 12-2 record since the trade.

“We think we netted out four outstanding prospects in the deal,” Wade said. “As painful as it was to move somebody of Hunter’s quality and character, we fell that the return we got was substantial enough to make us feel good about the deal.”

Limiting Lyles

The meter is running on Astros righthander Jordan Lyles’ season.

Astros general manager Ed Wade said he told pitching coach Doug Brocail on Monday to map out a plan for Lyles, who is 1-7 with a 5.31 ERA in 14 starts. The Astros have been discussingfor weeks about how much a workload to place on Lyles, 20. In 24 starts with the Astros and Class AAA Oklahoma City, Lyles has worked 143 2/3 innings.

The inclination is to shut down Lyles in the 165-170 inning range.

“We don’t want to overtax him,” Wade said. “There probably isn’t a magic number we can pick out of the air, but we’re certainly cognizant of where he is right now and take his age and experience under consideration. I don’t envision him taking the ball every fifth day the rest of the season.

“We’re trying to get everybody’s opinions on the thing so that when we go to Jordan and explain it to him, there’s some logic behind it.”

Manager Brad Mills said the team has done extensive research of pitchers in Lyles’ age range. Mills said the team would like to evaluate how Lyles responds to his throwing program the next few days. In two starts since picking up his first victory Lyles has allowed 14 runs on 19 hits in 10 1/3 innings.

“This is definitely not being just grabbed out of the air,” Mills said. “You’re dealing with humans. Thqat’s why it’s not an exact science. If it were a machine, it would be pretty exact.”

Schafer coming soon

Center fielder Jordan Schafer, who joined the team in the July 31 trade that send Michael Bourn to the Atlanta Braves, expects to join the active roster for next week’s road trip to Colorado.

Schafer was on the disabled list with a broken left middle finger at the time of the trade. He plans to have the finger examined Tuesday and begin a medical rehabilitation assignment with either Class AAA Oklahoma City or Class AA Corpus Christi on Wednesday. If all goes to plan, he’d join the big-league team next Monday at Colorado.

“I didn’t even know you could get traded when you’re on the DL, to be honest with you,” Schafer said. “I was as surprised as anybody, but I’m excited for the opportunity. I’m ready to get going.”

Heart and hustle

Center fielder Jason Bourgeois received the Major League Baseball Players Alumni Association Heart & Hustle Award before Monday’s game. He batted leadoff, with rookie J.D. Martinez batting third. Matt Downs go the start at third base and batted fifth in place of rookie Jimmy Paredes.

“The lineup right now is just kind of numbers,” manager Brad Mills said. “We’re trying to find out where guys go in. I think J.D. has kind of settled in pretty well at the third spot.